Night Realm by Darren G. Burton

Title: Night Realm
Author: Darren G. Burton
Format: Kindle edition
Pub. Date: May 25th 2012
Source: Darren G. Burton & Giveaways group

★★★★

Four stars.

Night Realm is a book that falls into both the Detective & Paranormal genres. It follows a cast of characters who are all connected to one another, but who are all trying to get radically different results.

Ryan Fox is a private investigator, down on his luck. Business isn't as fruitful as it used to be, so when he gets a call from the beautiful owner of the newest club in town, Selena, & sees the amount she's willing to pay for his job, he can't turn it down. It's an intriguing job- obtaining research on a rare blood disease. At home, relations with his younger sister are growing tense, & he's not sure what to do about it...

Chelsea Fox wants nothing to do with her brother. Bitter from an incident in the siblings' past, she would be happy if Ryan just dropped dead. She's out to live her own life, the way she wants to- not the way Ryan tells her to. But when she meets Travis, for once, she seems happy. But is Travis who he claims?

David Marks is a homicide detective with a heavy weight on his shoulders, & it only gets heavier as time goes by. A parade of murders with little evidence have popped up in the area, & no one seems to know what's going on. With no blood in the bodies or on the scene, no point of entry other than two small punctures in the neck, & traces of a rare virus, he's stumped. Add that to a failing marriage & the pressure's on- he's going solve one of his problems, no matter the cost.

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+I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author's writing is very detailed, which made this an easy to process read. It had a good amount of drama without trying too hard in a genre which, in my opinion, is the case a lot of the time.

+I felt attached to a few of the characters, which helped keep me emotionally invested in the story. I wanted to know what happens!

+Normally, I dislike books that constantly flip between points of view. But with Night Realm, I felt that each switch transitioned smoothly, thanks to the use of *** to differentiate. I found these switches easy to follow, & think it helped to make me so tied to the characters.

+I liked that it was set in Australia. Thanks to the author's descriptions, the landscape in which this was told was very beautiful, a great back drop.

-I did find a few grammatical mistakes, & a few times throughout, the sentences seemed a bit too short & choppy.

All in all, I give this a 4/5 star rating. Night Realm is a gripping novel that left me asking- is there going to be another book? I would recommend to vampire fans who like their fanged creatures on the non-sparkly side.

-Thank you to Darren G. Burton & Giveaways group for the free copy-